Planned Parenthood is suing Texas' Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) arguing that the state's rule unconstitutionally banned its clinics from Medicaid's Women's Health Program (WHP). Planned Parenthood states that the rule excluding its clinics from the WHP will take away basic, preventive health care from tens of thousands of women.

"Worst of all my fears is that these women will forgo life-saving screenings, comprehensive exams, reliable birth control and other vital preventive healthcare services," Patricio Gonzales, CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County in South Texas, told reporters yesterday.

Planned Parenthood notes that it is "the single largest provider of care within the Women’s Health Program and consistently delivers high-quality care to low-income women. In fact, over 40 percent of the women who receive services through WHP chose to rely on a Planned Parenthood health center."

This news comes after ongoing battles between Texas and Planned Parenthood. In February, the Texas state health department ruled to effectively ban all Planned Parenthood affiliates from the WHP after April 30. U.S. Health and Human Services responded by saying they would withdraw funding for Texas' WHP because the state could not restrict women's choice of provider for the program. Texas received 90% of its funds for the program from the federal government.

Texas responded by suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in an attempt to regain funding for its program. Catherine Frazier, a spokesperson for Gov. Perry, said yesterday, "Texas is under no obligation to provide taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood. Texas law has been very clear from day one of this program that abortion providers and their affiliates, like Planned Parenthood, are not qualified providers."

Planned Parenthood's lawsuit states that there will not be enough providers to meet the needs of the 130,00 women in the program if their clinics are forced to close.

"Many of (Planned Parenthood's) patients will simply go without preventive care altogether, resulting in them being at increased risk of undiagnosed cancer and sexually transmitted infections, unplanned pregnancies and abortion," the lawsuit said.

Planned Parenthood sued Texas in federal court Wednesday, arguing the state improperly banned its clinics from a Medicaid program that provides contraceptive and other health care to low-income women.

Challenging the ban as unconstitutional, a violation of state law and a misguided policy that jeopardizes the health of thousands of Texas women, Planned Parenthood is seeking an injunction allowing its clinics to remain part of the Women's Health Program. [...]

When the Legislature renewed the expiring health program last year, legislators added stronger limits restricting abortion providers and their affiliates. In February, the state health department encoded the restriction into a rule that will effectively ban all Planned Parenthood affiliates from the program after April 30.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services objected, however, saying Texas ran afoul of a federal law requiring that Medicaid recipients be able to choose any qualified provider willing to provide a service. The federal agency told Texas to begin phasing out the women's program, which receives about 90 percent of its funding from the federal government.

Texas then sued the federal health department, arguing that the decision to defund the Women's Health Program was illegal and violated the U.S. Constitution. Gov. Rick Perry also promised to find state money to continue the program without federal involvement.

In the lawsuit filed today, the Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates argue that the rule, which was purposefully designed to make them ineligible to continue to participate in the Women’s Health Program, violates their constitutional rights because it imposes an unconstitutional condition on their participation in the program and thereby harms the tens of thousands of low-income women who rely on them for basic, preventive health care. The lawsuit also claims that the rule violates Texas state law because the Health and Human Services Commission overstepped its authority in adopting a rule that conflicts with the purpose of the laws that created the program. [...]In Texas, the Women’s Health Program is fundamental to improving the health of Texan women, serving as a vital source of health care coverage for women of all ages. Currently more than one-quarter of Texan women are uninsured, and women in Texas have the third-highest rate of cervical cancer in the U.S.

“Planned Parenthood is very important to me and my family. When my mom was my age and pregnant, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Planned Parenthood. They helped her with additional testing and a referral to where she could get treated,” said Rene Resendez, a 24-year-old uninsured student from West Texas who has relied on Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Health Program since 2007. “Without the Women’s Health Program and Planned Parenthood, I don’t know what I would do, or where I would go for the cancer screenings I know I need. Planned Parenthood has been a place my family can trust and I should be able to decide who provides my healthcare.”

Planned Parenthood health centers in Texas have been critical to the success of the Women’s Health Program. Planned Parenthood is the single largest provider of care within the Women’s Health Program and consistently delivers high-quality care to low-income women. In fact, over 40 percent of the women who receive services through WHP chose to rely on a Planned Parenthood health center.

Texas Articles

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was indicted on two felony counts on Friday by a state grand jury examining his handling of a local district attorney’s drunken driving arrest and the state financing for a public corruption unit under the lawyer’s control.
The indictment was returned late Friday in Austin.
The investigation centered on Mr. Perry’s veto power as governor. His critics asserted that he used that power as leverage to try to get an elected official and influential Democrat — Rosemary Lehmberg, the district attorney in Travis County —...

Far-right Texas Republicans prospered in the first US primary of the year as it was confirmed that Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott will square off in the battle to be the state’s next governor. Davis parlayed the national celebrity garnered from her epic filibuster last June into a high-profile bid to become Texas’s first Democratic governor in two decades.
On Tuesday night the state senator from Fort Worth comfortably secured her party’s nomination. Texas attorney general Abbott easily won the Republican contest to replace Rick Perry, who is stepping down as...

Ted Nugent, the old rocker from the Seventies, is now just plain old… and off his rocker.
A political novelty act for the far right and a front man for the National Rifle Association, Nugent regularly spews venomous, vulgar, race-laced, abusive hate speech about liberals, Democrats, gun laws, and creeping communism. In January, for example, he tongue-lashed President Obama, calling him a "communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel."
So, naturally, this scurrilous lout was promptly invited to come to Texas by the leading Republican candidate for governor. It seems that Greg Abbott, currently...

A Texas judge has struck down that state's ban on gay marriage.
U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia did not say gay marriages could be performed immediately. Instead, he stayed the decision, citing a likely appeal.
"Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution," Garcia wrote in his decision. "These Texas laws deny Plaintiffs access to the institution of marriage and its numerous rights, privileges, and responsibilities for the sole reason that Plaintiffs wish to be married to a person of the same sex."
The state's gay marriage ban was challenged by two gay couples -- one seeking to marry in Texas and one seeking to have their marriage, which...

The Nov. 5 constitutional amendment election is the first statewide election which requires Texans to present a photo ID when they vote in person. Early voting started Oct. 21 and ended Nov. 1. So far, the election has gone smoothly, but there is some bad information brewing about what you may or may not need at the polls, specifically that the name on your approved ID and the name on your voter registration must match exactly. As one county election official put it, that’s just an urban legend.When it comes...

State Sen. Wendy Davis of Texas will run for governor next year, two Democratic sources familiar with the planning confirmed to CNN.
The Democrat, who gained national fame after her 13-hour filibuster over a controversial abortion bill, was already scheduled to make an announcement about her political future on October 3. But until Thursday it wasn't certain whether she would be running for governor or run for re-election to her state Senate seat. Politico first reported Davis would run for governor.
Wendy Davis: From teen mom to Harvard Law to famous...

The Texas billionaire's foundation has come through with a major gift to the beleaguered women's health provider
Thousands of women have lost access to vital healthcare since Texas dismantled its Medicaid-funded Women’s Health Program in 2011 because Planned Parenthood acted as a service provider under the program. As a result of these cuts, and the persistent targeting of reproductive health clinics by anti-choice lawmakers, many clinics have been forced to close in recent years, leaving Texas women without low- and no-cost options for reproductive healthcare.
Enter: Ross Perot.
The Perot Foundation of Dallas, which was founded...

The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that it will challenge Texas’s Voter ID law, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments.
In a separate case, the Justice Department will also join in a challenge to the state’s GOP-drawn redistricting plans.
The decisions come just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down part of the act that determines which jurisdictions require the Justice Department to approve any electoral changes before they become law. Texas had previously been subject to the so-called “preclearance.”
Justice Department officials...

In the wake of yesterday's epic fail on transportation funding it looks like state legislators are headed back to Austin for a third month-long special session, and it won't be cheap. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports this morning, each extra month the legislature's in session costs $800,000, bringing the likely toll on taxpayers to $2.4 million.
Much of this could have been avoided, of course. Lawmakers could have done what they're elected to do and finished their business in the spring. Failing that, they could have set aside inflammatory topics...

The Texas anti-abortion bill, which threatened to close nearly all of the abortion clinics in the state and prompted an 11-hour filibuster by state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), is dead, The Austin American-Statesman reported.
Lawmakers had to vote on Senate Bill 5 before the special session's end at 12 a.m. local time. However, protesters halted the proceedings 15 to 20 minutes before the roll call could be completed.
The crowd of demonstrators in the capitol cried "Shame! Shame!" when Davis' filibuster was halted by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who ruled that her...

On Saturday, as Texas hosted the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, the Texas House passed 12 gun bills to make it even easier to obtain and possess firearms in the state. The onslaught of legislation contains provisions to allow college students to carry handguns in class and to block any theoretical federal bans on assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition. The 12 bills, a veritable goody bag for gun rights advocates, passed easily in the Republican-dominated House.
Texas lawmakers introduced about twice as many gun bills this session as last year, generally...

Texas teachers were up early on the first day of spring break working on their lesson plan. But it wasn't for their students.
The educators need to convince budget-conscious lawmakers that last session's cuts in school funding need to be restored. They hope to put a human face on the problem of overworked classroom teachers and how it's affecting our children.
Montserrat Garibay with the teachers’ group Education Austin says, "Unfortunately many of these legislators have never been in a classroom so educating them is very important to us...

Texas lawmakers are stepping into a debate about whether Austin should require companies to pay a “living wage” to construction workers to qualify for economic development deals.
State Rep. Kenneth Sheets, R-Dallas, said a group of minority contractors told him they would have difficulty paying the $11-an-hour living wage to the laborers they hire, making those contractors less likely to get a piece of the publicly subsidized projects. Sheets filed legislation last month that would bar cities from mandating any wage requirements as part of economic incentive packages, such as the ones...

Adamantly opposed to expanding Medicaid coverage under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst had seemingly squelched efforts this legislative session to insure an additional 1.1 million low-income Texans under the Affordable Care Act.
But a determined campaign, targeting legislators with public pressure and private persuasion, has kept the issue alive by framing Medicaid expansion as an economic bonanza and tax-relief opportunity that would bring $79 billion in much-needed federal money over 10 years.
The arguments, pitched to Republican ears, have carved out a...

The party is launching a full-scale offensive in the Lone Star with the aim of slowly turning the GOP stronghold into a battleground state
Democrats, bolstered by President Obama’s victory last fall, have now set their sights on a prize even more valuable than the White House: the state of Texas.
The party is launching a full-scale offensive in the Lone Star with the aim of slowly turning the GOP stronghold into a battleground state. According to Politico, a coalition of groups is creating a grassroots...

Registered Nurses, members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas/National Nurses United (NNU) -- the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the country, with 185,000…

Score another victory for the Tea Party.
One-time long-shot candidate Ted Cruz completed his once nearly unthinkable upset Tuesday, winning the runoff for the Republican Senate nomination in Texas over David…

Rep. Alma Allen (D-131) - Allen said in a statement to the organization "Progress Texas," "As a legislator, I value the input that non-partisan organizations contribute to various issues. However, I do not believe that the American Legislative Exchange Council is a non-partisan organization. Due to the legislation that ALEC has been involved in forming and promoting, I will not be renewing my membership. I value and listen to all opinions, but ALEC's agenda has become harmful to my constituents, and the people of the State of Texas."[25]

Rep. Armando Martinez (D-Weslaco) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin) - Announced she would not be renewing her ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Hubert Vo (D-Houston) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Chente Quintanilla (D-Tornillo) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio) - Announced she would not be renewing her ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Eric Johnson (D-Dallas) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Tracy O. King (D-80) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[26]

Rep. Ryan Guillen (D-31) - Announced he would not be renewing his ALEC membership in April 2012.[27]